Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
Continuing on, you said:

2. I would also not use the Levitical priesthood as ‘proof’ for my argument for the headship of Adam in the garden. The priesthood does show us something about Leadership and its requirements/who was aloud to do it etc, but i don’t think it supports the JW view either.

The priesthood was about offering sacrifices and it was designed for one family. It says nothing about leadership since there were no qualification of gender or family in the leadership of the Prophets or the Judges. These were chosen and given leadership by God Himself.

Cheryl, im assuming you are the Narrator? If so, i am also concerned at a few things you had to say apart from the accent 🙂

Well, my friend, I am always happy to deal with the concerns. Yes, I am the narrator. It was a talk that I gave to an ex-JW convention in 2006.

Your whole argument for this video around the priesthood if i can put simply was this ‘The Levitical Priesthood was the foundation and it was supposed to spread to everyone (women included) not just men’. If this is what you were saying i disagree.

What I was saying was what the Bible says about the nation of Israel. The Priesthood started out as the “Levitical” Priesthood. It was one tribe alone. But it was not meant to stay this way because God promised Israel that they would be a nation of priests just as God said that the body of Christ are all priests.

1. The ‘covenant’ nation Israel is not the same as the Levitical Preisthood. You attempted to argue your view from Exodus 19 where Israel is called a ‘kingdom of priests’, to show how women are essentially included into the priesthood- they are not. The covenant community was chosen as God’s people to be a nation of preists in the sense of projecting God’s glory to the world. This of course included men, women, children as it does now. ‘The Church’ i.e covenant community has the same role to fill. The metaphor for a nation of priests is symbolic of their role as Gods chosen people and i think you have confused it with the role of Levitical men wrongly.

It is interesting that the family of Levites who are priests is literal but the nation as priests is a “metaphor”. It isn’t a “metaphor”. The fact that God says that if Israel would obey Him, that He would make the entire nation a kingdom of “priests” shows that God is not withholding service from some because of their family line or their gender. Mark, this is not dealing with the text in an honest way. You are just disregarding what God has said by calling it a “metaphor”. Where does God say that the priesthood of Israel is “symbolic”? Can you back up your claim that there are “real” priests and only “symbolic” priests? The onus is on you to prove that there is only symbolism.

Is the body of Christ “symbolic” priests or do we have a spiritual function as priests in the kingdom? Certainly we do not sacrifice animals on the altar but that is unnecessary since the one true sacrifice has been offered and the sacrifices have been abolished.

2. The Levitical Preisthood was established as God’s priests to fulfill the role of the Hebrew cultic system, i.e temple. This role could only be performed by men of the tribe of Levites. No women were aloud to perform this role, nor men from another tribe. The Levites were set aside by God for this role.

That is correct. However in this was a temporal duty and there is a higher position coming. God said that the nation would be priests “to ME” and in the New Testament we are offering up our own bodies as a living and holy sacrifice and this is our spiritual service of worship. We are a kingdom of priests serving God in this temple (our body) to the service of the entire body of Christ.

Rom 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

This higher position, higher than the Levitical priesthood is available to all without restriction in the body of Christ. Israel has not yet come to the place where they are all priests to God since they are in disobedience until now. But one day they will also fulfill God’s mandate for them and they too will all be priests.

If God calls us real priests and offering up our body to him is a real duty of that priesthood, then who are we to say that our priesthood is only “symbolic” and that it is less than that of the Levitical priesthood? It is not less than the first priesthood. It is greater.

Therefore i am concerned how you confuse the two in an attempt to show that women were just as much ‘priests’ as the men. This is simply not the case. The role given to the Levitical priesthood should not be confused as the same role/idea as the kingdom of priests, or the ‘royal priesthood’ of the New Testament. We all have the role of being Christ’s representatives here on earth as did the Hebrews, but the role of priests belonged only to men in the OT. Likewise the positions of elder/pastor are only held by men in the NT and we should follow that. All it really did was show a poor biblical theology.

I am not saying that the Jewish women “were” priests. I said that if Israel obeyed God, he promised that all of them would be priests. They never got to that point so their women had not yet come into the priesthood of Israel. Although you say that the “role” of priests belonged to men alone in the Old Testament, I showed you from the scriptures where this was not the way that it was meant to stay. It was not meant to remain a closed position only with one tribe and only men. It was always meant to be open to the whole nation.

You see, the priesthood was a place of holiness where the priests had to keep themselves clean. No one could minister without be cleansed. The nation was not yet ready to be in that position, but God promised that one day they would be clean – all of them. This is a very precious promise and in the body of Christ we are all clean by the blood of Christ. All of us have been given the position of priests and as ones cleaned and ready for service, none of us are held back by the uncleanness of sin. So while God started out with only one tribe that was “clean” and fit for service, He would spread to the entire nation so that all are “clean” and fit for His service. To disregard this is to say that God’s promise of service for the entire nation has no real merit.

Think about it this way – if the priesthood was always and only for men alone then it would be improper for God to promise it to women in any shape or form. He would have to call their service something else because women then would not be able to be priests whether symbolic, actual or spiritual. It would be disallowed. You have to deal with this. Why were women said to be part of the priesthood? Why are you so willing to dismiss this very important chapter in favor of restricting God’s service to men alone? Is it possible that your own prejudice has kept you blind so that you cannot accept the high calling of women alongside their brothers?

Secondly the Bible never says that “pastors” and “elders” can “ONLY” be men. The Bible could have clearly said that if that was the case. But it does not. More about that later.